Eragon Fourteen
Chapters Through a dragon's eye, A song for the road. Summary This chapter begins innocuously enough. Eragon gets over his fear of flying with Saphira. He goes flying without any sort of protective clothing and doesn't freeze to death. There's a lovely interlude that seems to be lifted straight from Anne McCaffery's Pern Series, as Saphira and Eragon meld minds and are one. This is similar to what happens when a Pernese dragon and their rider go on a mating flight. But, Eragon loves it. Though, in a lovely bit of contradictoriness, Saphira shows him how she uses hills to hide behind, and they're on the plains. Where, as previously stated, there are no hills. Though I'm not to sure how a flying blue dragon can use a hill to hide behind. As usually, they're up in the sky and not anywhere near a hill. Unless there are hills in the sky in Eragon land. If anything Saphira should stay up in the air, because most people don't generally look up in the sky but if there was something swooping down every once in a while it'd be like someone doing the whole trying not to be seen and going "sneak sneak sneak" at the same time. Brom tries to get into Eragon's head and then yells at him when Eragon tries to keep him out of his head because he thinks that he's being attacked. Though why would anyone want to go into Ergaon's head is beyond me. Apparently the Ra'zarc have flown the coop and they've lost their trail. Searching around for a while Eragon finds a mysterious flask with the Ra'zac's insignia on it. Though how he knows what that looks like, we're not told. The flask contains a poison that can only harm animal or human flesh. It can stay in the bed sheets or coat a weapon and not harm it. Apparently it's made from a regular if expensive imported jewelers oil. Eragon figures that since it's so expensive that only a certain amount of people would be able to have it. And if they can discover who bought it and where it went they can discover where the Ra'zac are. Now, this is assuming that the records of this oil is kept. And if it is kept, that the oil they bought all came from the same place. Of course, if these Ra'zac were really intelligent they would have smuggled the oil in so there'd be no record of the oil at all. Brom thinks this is a brilliant idea and wonders why he never thought of this before. Perhaps because he never knew that the Ra'zac used this oil? In any case, they decide to go to Terim which controls most of the trade. They're going to go see an old friend of Brom's who conveniently lives there named Jeod. Jeod, according to naming conventions, is important. We get a brief history lesson of the elves about how they came from over the sea and that they retain a great fascination for the ocean. Tolkien anyone? Brom then chants a song for Eragon, that's from the elves. I reproduce it for you in all it's... glory. O liquid temptress 'neath the azure sky, Your gilded expanse calls me, calls me For I would sail ever on, Were it not for the elven maid who calls me, calls me She binds my heart with a lily-white tie, Never to be broke, save by the sea, Ever to be torn twixt the trees and the waves. First off, if this is a song sung by elves to elves, why would they call someone an elven maid? It'd be like singing a love song and saying "that human girl" as opposed to "that girl". I suppose it's so that we know that elves are involved. Then there is no scheme, rhyming or otherwise. It doesn't fit into meter system. It doesn't scan at all. It's just... pretentious and bad. Brom teaches Eragon how to hunt using magic. Apparently he shoots a small rock at the prey and it never misses. Never, ever misses. Never. This also apparently saves time with hunting. How does it do this, I don't know. Apparently the prey are just walking up to Eragon and saying hit me with a rock please! That's the only way it could work. Mean while Eragon loses what fat he had and becomes lean with muscles. Personally I want to know where he got the fat in the first place. He worked on a farm and went hunting. Not much fat is going to be found on a body who works all the day long. Unless he was just lazing about the place to have the fat. This also happens within a couple of weeks. That is a classical Stu trait, to become all ripped like that (And yes, he uses the word rippled) lean with muscles. Especially in such short amount of time. As a final note, Brom says that they'll have to be more careful about going into towns because news of who Eragon is would have reached everyone. The Ra'zoc have been maybe two days ahead of them. It takes a while for them to get back to the king and then a while for the messengers to get to EVERY city and town. Information isn't transmitted instantaneously. It should take months, at least, for places, especially the ones farthest away from where the king lives (where ever that is) to learn about Eragon. Category:Inheritance Cycle Category:Eragon